A dramatic weekend at the “Aurum 1006 km” race

23.07.2021

14 – 17 July 2021, Palanga (Lithuania) hosted the 22nd long-distance car race in the event’s history – “Aurum 1006 km Powered by Hankook”. It is one of the largest racing events in the Baltic region. There were 41 cars on the start grid – many Porsche, Lamborghini, AMG Mercedes, BMW, various TCR class cars, and other impressive cars. More than 140 drivers from Lithuania, Estonia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain were ready to fight for the podium. More information about the event here – https://racing.lt/en.

Valters was the only driver from Latvia participating in this prestigious race. Together with the experienced Lithuanian drivers Ramunas Capkauskas and Audrius Sasiulevicius, they were driving the “ES Motorsport” powerful Porsche GT3 CUP car. Even though this was the first start for Valters with the GT class car, he already showed the top10 timings in the training sessions out of 140 drivers. On Friday’s qualification round, the team finished 6th.

During the first five hours of the race, despite various little crashes and race incidents with the rivals, the team was fighting for 3rd-5th positions, with great chances to finish on the podium both in the GT Open class and the overall stats. After completing 253 laps, with A.Stasiulevicius behind the wheels, Porsche’s engine exploded and blew up so quickly that the firefighters did not manage to put out the fire – it was already too late as the whole car was in flames. It seems that we will not see this beautiful green car on the race tracks anymore. Anyhow, Valters proved once more that he can adapt to a new car very quickly and be fast with such a powerful car as Porsche GT.

The next plans for Valters include two races in the NEZ championship and Baltic 6-hour endurance races in Parnu and Riga with the Audi RS3 LMS car. Valters is the leader after two rounds in the overall standings of the prestigious TCR Sprint race and is fighting for the podium in the overall stats of the endurance race together with the team “LV Racing”.

Valters expresses thanks to Jurmala City Council for sponsoring participation costs for many years, and to other supporters – “Optibet”, “Sanistal”, “Baltic Industrial Packaging Solutions” “Gatorz Eyewear Europe”, “Joker Klubs”, ”I-Con”, “Rosenso Marketing”, and others.